


Where My Voice Makes No Noise, Trapped in My Body

by ADreamIsASoftPlaceToLand



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Lizard Kissin' Tuesday, Multi, Panic Attack, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast), Sorry Not Sorry, Tumblr Ask Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 23:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19187161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamIsASoftPlaceToLand/pseuds/ADreamIsASoftPlaceToLand
Summary: The first time it happens, Arum is not prepared.





	Where My Voice Makes No Noise, Trapped in My Body

**Author's Note:**

> The way you said "I Love You" tumblr prompt: with a hoarse voice, under the blankets  
> requested by tumblr user @jakkubrat
> 
> Title is from the song Ocean by Lauren Aquilina

The first time it happens, Arum is not prepared. Damien and Rilla have a system, and while it doesn’t always make it any easier for them, it at least takes the guesswork out of the situation.

Damien’s panic is raw and visceral, and Arum can literally taste his fear in the air. It’s unlike anything he’s ever witnessed. He’s seen his honeysuckle babble on about his worries and anxieties, but this is different. This is physical, sobs and gasps wracking through Damien’s body so hard he’s sure his little knight is going to break.

The moment it starts happening Rilla is there, by his side and wrapping arms around him, her voice calm and soothing, repeating short and simple sentences they’ve agreed work best to keep him grounded and focused until he can calm himself. The simple words are a lifeline he can cling to. Basic statements that ring clear in his head each time they are spoken, and eventually he begins to believe them.

Arum watches all of this, horrified and unsure - desperate to help, to do SOMETHING - but Rilla is so focused on Damien and Damien is so far gone that he freezes to the spot where he’s standing near the wall of their hut, and dares not speak lest he shatter this fragile moment and Damien slips too far away to come back to them.

When Damien is finally tranquil again, still shaking and coated in a sheen of sweat, but breathing normally and murmuring weakly back to Rilla as she asks him questions, Arum feels safe enough to break the spell. He steps forward, clawed hands clenching each other as he cautiously clears his throat, alerting his flowers of his presence.

Damien’s head snaps up first, and something inside Arum crumbles when he sees the mortification and guilt on Damien’s tear-streaked face. Neither of them can speak, but thankfully Rilla turns to him and breaks the silence.

“Arum, can you come sit with him for a minute? I’m going to get some water and a towel.” She doesn’t quite look apologetic as she gets up and walks out of the hut, leaving him no time to answer.

Arum looks back to Damien, who suddenly won’t meet his gaze. He steps forward cautiously, some part of his subconscious terrified that if he moves the wrong way, or too quickly, Damien will panic again. When he settles on the bed next to Damien, he tries not to notice how the little knight flinches away from him.

“Are you alright, Honeysuckle?” It’s a stupid question, but he’s never seen Damien like this, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Damien huffs out a laugh that is dry and brittle. “I suppose I am now, yes. Though I am… deeply sorry that you had to see that, lizard-friend.”

Arum sucks in a breath, his throat rattling involuntarily with concern. “What…” He trails off, not even sure how to ask about what just happened.

“Rilla calls them terror spells,” he explains, his voice so soft even Arum’s lizard ears can barely make out the words. “My mind gets too… Caught up in my twisted thoughts and I can’t make sense of anything anymore. Everything is just too much all at once and my mind is so afraid of what is not real that my body begins to believe that it IS real. And so, it panics, and I lose the ability to breathe. It feels like dying. Or rather, it feels like the moment before you die prolonged for an eternity, an eternity trapped in a moment of the greatest fear you have ever felt.”

Damien is still not looking at him, and Arum wants so badly to look into his honeysuckles eyes and reassure himself that Damien is not broken, that there’s still a spark in those eyes that he loves so desperately. The spark of passion, dedication. The spark that lights up even brighter whenever he talks about Rilla, or even Arum these days. The spark that turns into something harder when they spar, the glint of a fire that rages in his warrior heart.

He reaches out to Damien, to take his hand, to wrap an arm around the knight’s slumped shoulders, to push his sweat-damp hair away from his face. But he hesitates, still unsure if his comfort would be welcome, and then suddenly Rilla is back, and the moment is lost. He shifts away from Damien and retreats to the corner of the room again, moving out of the way so Rilla can mop the sweat from Damien’s brow with the water she’s retrieved.

The rest of the day passes without further incident. Damien leaves the hut to continue his training, Rilla works on one of her more recent experiments - she’s trying to figure out if she can recreate the bioluminescence that lights up the Keep at night in the hut, so the absence of daylight doesn’t mean she has to read by the dim glow of the fire, especially in the summer when they’d all much rather not have a fire burning all night long.

Arum tries to make himself useful, but Damien still won’t… Look at him. And it’s distracting. He’s being distant and cagey, offering only one or two words in response to questions when normally he waxes poetic at the smallest opportunity.

He lasts until that night, when Damien doesn’t tangle himself up in Arum’s many limbs when they crawl into bed together. He instead moves closer to Rilla’s side, still empty as most of her experiments with bioluminescence work best in the dark of night. It stings more than Arum would like to admit, that Damien doesn’t seek his comfort, but for now he can at least pretend that his worry is for Damien’s sake, rather than for his own selfish desires.

“Honeysuckle, are you afraid of me?” He asks, trying to make it sound like a joke, but it comes out little more than a pained whisper.

Damien’s eyes flick to his for the barest of moments, before glancing back down to stare at his hands, which are fiddling with the silk sheet that covers them. “N-no, Lord Arum. Of course not. It is merely -” He cuts himself off abruptly, and his shoulders hunch suddenly as he curls into himself, arms leaving the sheet to wrap around his waist.

“Honeysuckle, speak to me. You have nothing to fear with me. Surely you know that I would never hurt you. Least of all when you are already in pain,” Arum reaches a hand out to rest it on Damien’s cheek, but he flinches back from the contact, and Arum immediately retreats.

“Honeysuckle…” Arum’s quiet voice sounds almost like a plea, though for what he isn’t entirely sure. For Damien to come back to him. For Damien to want him again. For Damien to be alright.

“I don’t know - how - I - Arum how can you even look at me?” Damien’s face turns into the pillow and his eyes squeeze shut. “After that… awful display this morning. Seeing me so… weak and helpless and… Fragile.”

He practically spits the last word in disgust, and then Arum understands. Damien is ashamed. Damien is ashamed and suddenly something in Arum cracks. Lizards do not cry, at least not for the same reasons humans do, their tears are more of a built in eye-wash system than anything, but they can still feel. Arum is suddenly choking on a lump in his throat, and his ribs constrict as he looks at his little knight stuck in a trap of his mind’s own creation.

Before he can stop himself, and before Damien can move away, Arum moves to Damien’s side of the bed and wraps his arms around Damien’s waist, his upper arms wrapping around Damien’s shoulder, one hand resting on the back of his neck, claws tangling in the curls there.

Arum’s voice is hoarse and so thick with emotion he thinks it might not come out at all as he chokes out, “I. Love. You.”

Damien stiffens in his arms, and his breath catches, but now that he’s spoken Arum can breathe properly, and he’s just getting started. “I love you, little knight. How could you possibly think otherwise? I am in love with you even when you are broken and hurt and upset. I was absolutely terrified this morning. I didn’t know I could feel such fear until I saw you like that, but I felt that way because I love you and I wanted to help and I didn’t know what to do and I thought I might. I thought I might lose you and no thought has ever scared me more.”

Damien begins to relax as Arum’s claws card through his hair and Arum can feel the warmth of tears beginning to drip onto the scales on his chest. He pulls back just enough to reach under Damien’s chin and tilt it up so that he’s looking his little knight in the eye, daring him to look away, daring his honeysuckle to contradict the feelings he knows he is so plainly wearing on his features. Damien takes a shuddering breath as he looks into Arum’s violet eyes, and for once he seems to be at a loss for words. Instead, a hint of a smile lifts the corners of his mouth, and he shifts closer to Arum, pushing forward until their foreheads are pressed against each other. And for the first time that day, they both breathe.


End file.
